Welcome to the Centre for Co-operative Studies

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you, in my capacity as Director, to the website of the Centre for Co-operative Studies, University College Cork, Ireland.

The Centre was founded in 1980, by a small group of co-operatively minded academics who wished to explore and promote the co-operative concept through research and teaching. The group came to a common understanding of the meaning of co-operation as a process and that co-operatives, as Organisations, enable this process and developed structural guidelines to ensure the effective implementation of the co-operative process. These ideas were developed in the very first publication of the Centre entitled The Co-operative Idea.

Today, the Centre continues its work of fostering research, study and education about co-operatives. It is a strong focus of support for academics who are interested in co-operatives and it works closely with many national and international co-operative bodies. Further detail about the Centre's activities, programmes, publications, information resources, staff, and links can be found throughout the website.